Thicknesse: Question on Pronunciation

[Goddlefrood]

> Catlady:

> I reject -- it is NOT POSSIBLE that that JKR could *approve* of 
> Percy getting revenge for how much he's suffered in the Ministry 
> by taking vengeance on someone who is basically 'innocent by 
> reason of insanity: if Thicknesse was no more aware of what he 
> was doing to Percy than if he'd been asleep at the time, that 
> counts as innocent by reason of insanity.

Goddlefrood:

The expression you are perhaps looking for is automatism. This, in 
the real legal world, would be the equivalent of being placed under 
an Imperius curse. The curse supposedly puts him or her cursed in 
the total control of the person casting the curse, thus losing any 
conscious control whatsoever. That's automatism, non-insane 
automatism possibly ;-).

I wonder, in respect of the other posts on this thread, whether 
the word sere has been considered. Sirius and serious are so 
different in the way they would be pronounced by myself, another 
native English speaker, that there really is no confusion at all, 
but then as an esteemed former tennis champion from New York once 
said:

"You cannot be Sirius", when addressing an umpire whose name was 
indeed something else.

Chin chin

Goddlefrood